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☆ Exclusive: Most patients using weight-loss drugs like Wegovy stop within a year, data show
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Chad Terhune | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The annual cost of overall care for patients prior to taking Wegovy or a similar drug was $12,371, on average, according to the analysis. The costs for a similar control group of patients not taking the drugs decreased by 4% over the same period. The analysis by Prime Therapeutics, a pharmacy benefits manager (PBM), reviewed pharmacy and medical claims data for 4,255 people with commercial health plans. For the analysis, Prime Therapeutics excluded patients with type 2 diabetes to focus on obesity treatment. In trials with adults, Novo found that 6.8% of patients taking Wegovy discontinued treatment due to gastrointestinal problems and other adverse events.

Persons: Wegovy, Khrysta Baig, Patrick Gleason, Novo, aren't, Gleason, David Lassen, Lassen, Chad Terhune, Michele Gershberg, Bill Berkrot Organizations: Reuters, Vanderbilt University, Novo Nordisk, Prime Therapeutics, Therapeutics, U.S, Blue, Thomson Locations: Danish

☆ Inside your company's struggle over whether to pay for hot, new weight-loss drugs
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Americans are clamoring for new weight-loss drugs, but companies aren't rushing to pay for them. At most, half of US employers help pay for weight-loss drugs for their workers, according to several estimates. "The drug companies, providers, and patient groups are insisting that weight loss will improve health and therefore offset these massive costs. Known as GLP-1 agonists, the drugs — Wegovy and Ozempic from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro — mimic a gut hormone known as glucagon-like peptide 1, helping to suppress people's appetites and slow their digestion. Brent Eberle, the chief pharmacy officer at Navitus, said very few of the employers that worked with his pharmacy-benefit manager paid for weight-loss drugs.

Persons: that's, They're, AJ Loiacono, Li Ran, James Gelfand, Eli Lilly's, Ozempic, drugmakers, Brent Eberle, Navitus, Eberle, it's, Pat Gleason, Gleason, Wegovy, Eli Lilly, Lilly, Florian Gaertner, Loiacono Organizations: Morning, Novo Nordisk, Getty, Workers, Drugmakers, Therapeutics, Blue, Mayo Clinic, and Drug Administration, Capital Locations: Novo, Xinhua

☆ Longevity pioneer Peter Attia explains why the quest to live longer is constrained by the US healthcare system
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( Blake Dodge | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The ultra-wealthy are betting on tech and science breakthroughs to live longer. Longevity expert Dr. Peter Attia explained why preventative care like that still isn't widespread. The ultra wealthy have been shelling out to live longer for some time. In his view, there's a key obstacle standing in the way of your long-term health, ironically: the U.S. healthcare system. Attia's definition of longevity is a function of lifespan, the number of years you live, and healthspan, how well you can live them.

Persons: Peter Attia, There's, podcaster Rich, Attia, Rich —, Bryan Johnson's, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, OpenAI's Sam Altman, we'll, it's, Rich Roll, Stefanie Keenan, Roll Organizations: Morning, Aetna, Tech, IWC Schaffhausen, behemoth Locations: U.S, Los Angeles, Canada

A spokesperson for defendant Blue Cross Blue Shield Association declined to comment on pending litigation. A representative from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan also declined to comment. The lawsuit seeks to bar Blue Cross Blue Shield's alleged anticompetitive conduct, and it also seeks triple damages and other remedies. Ford's lawsuit said Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is the country's ninth largest insurer based on its 4.5 million enrollees. The case is Ford Motor Co v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Mutual Insurance Company and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, No.

Persons: Ford, Travis Mihelick, Mike Scarcella, Leigh Jones Organizations: Ford Motor, Blue, Association, Ford, Shield Association, Circuit, Appeals, Shield, Michigan, Ford Motor Co, of Michigan Mutual Insurance Company, U.S, Eastern, Eastern District of, Thomson Locations: Detroit, Michigan, Alabama, Atlanta, Eastern District, Eastern District of Michigan

☆ Elevance Health Earnings Rise With Uptick in Premiums, Enrollment
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Dean Seal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elevance Health, which owns Blue Cross Blue Shield, is dealing with double-digit growth in costs. Photo: Michael Conroy/Associated PressElevance Health Inc. reported stronger revenue and earnings in the first quarter as growing premiums continued to outpace rising costs. The health insurer and Blue Cross Blue Shield owner, formerly known as Anthem Inc., said operating revenue grew more than 10% to $41.9 billion. Analysts had been expecting $40.92 billion, according to FactSet.

☆ I raised $9.75 million for my health and wellness company as a Black female founder. Here's how I did it and found the right investors.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Alexandra York | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The duo has raised $9.75 million in VC, a major accomplishment for two Black female entrepreneurs. As of 2022, only a few hundred Black or Latina women founders have raised $1 million or more in VC. White men see white women in their homes and they see Black men in the locker room, but they don't see Black women as often. Feeling seen by our women investors and investors of color has made a huge difference. There are tons of Black women founders in healthcare.

☆ Fact Check-Michigan incentive program for children’s vaccines paid far less than $40,000 to individual providers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The posts read, “DID YOU KNOW: Blue Cross Blue Shield pays pediatricians a $40,000 bonus for fully vaccinating 100 patients under the age of 2. The full document does describe an incentive program offered to Michigan providers in 2016, and the excerpt seen in the posts about childhood vaccines is on the document’s page 15. “While vaccinations may fall into that category, they would not be the sole performance measure,” said a spokesperson for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), which represents the insurer’s affiliates in multiple states. Each of the 34 Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies “sets its own value-based contracts and determines which performance measures would be taken into account for incentives,” she added. A 2016 Michigan program paid individual providers smaller maximum amounts for vaccinating children than claimed online.

☆ Eli Lilly’s Insulin Decision Puts Others in Hot Seat
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( David Wainer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

High list prices for insulin add to the profits of pharmacy-benefit managers. But when a little-known nonprofit named Civica Rx announced plans last year to make low-cost insulin, the move didn’t spook the companies that profit from high insulin prices. Pharmacy-benefit managers, which control 80% of the prescription-drug market, profit from high list prices. Keeping Civica Rx at bay is one thing. That is exactly what happened last week when Eli Lilly decided to drastically cut the list price of some of its insulin products.

They stressed that the reallocation would be gradual and not result in fire sales, with new money going largely into fixed income rather than alternative investments. Goldman Sachs' asset management arm is planning to significantly reduce its $59 billion of alternative investments. Credit rating agencies Moody's and S&P, which both give Allianz high marks, have pointed to the greater risk posed by comparatively illiquid alternative investments in Allianz's portfolio. Alternative investments come at a price, requiring Allianz and other insurers to set aside more capital to own them because they are less liquid than bonds. In its wake, Allianz has had to close down Allianz Global Investors in the United States in a serious blow to the company.

☆ A couple's retirement plan was derailed in 2008, so they moved abroad for a lower cost of living. They explain how they live comfortably on Social Security and spend just $2,000 a month.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Edd and Cynthia Staton's retirement plan was derailed when the Great Recession wiped them out. They took what savings they had and moved to Ecuador, where the cost of living was lower. They've been living comfortably abroad for over a decade on a budget of $2,000 a month. Edd and Cynthia Staton met as teenagers when Cynthia's family moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia in 1967. Living stress-free on $2,000 a month in Ecuador for 10 yearsTheir immediate hurdle was finding a place to live.

☆ Health insurer Elevance's strategy is coming into focus as it goes head-to-head with giants UnitedHealth and CVS
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elevance Health, the major US health insurer formerly called Anthem, said Monday that it plans to acquire Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana in a rare merger between two Blue-affiliated health insurers. It's possible that if the merger goes through, the Louisiana Blue could flip to using Elevance's PBM. While competitors like UnitedHealth, CVS, and Humana are pushing deeper into delivering primary care, Elevance has focused on owning businesses that serve people with serious and chronic illnesses. Carelon's strategy has been to sell its services to both Elevance's own health plans and other Blue-affiliated insurers. Carelon brought in almost $41 billion in revenue in 2022, and 60% of that came from Elevance's own health plans, Boudreaux said Wednesday.

☆ Elevance to Acquire Louisiana Nonprofit Health Insurer
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Anna Wilde Mathews | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elevance Health Inc. said it agreed to acquire the nonprofit health insurer Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, expanding its Blue business into a new state. Elevance, the parent of a major health insurer that offers an array of other health services as well, didn’t disclose terms of the deal in its Monday announcement. Spokeswomen for Elevance and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana declined to comment.

The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company negotiates directly with drugmakers. So far, that's been the strategy for the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company. In October, Cost Plus Drug Company announced a partnership with Capital Blue Cross. Cuban said he wanted Cost Plus Drug Company to be as transparent as possible on pricing. Cost Plus Drug Company is considering a test program for insulin that would offer a 90-day supply of insulin, or a total of 12 vials, for $170.

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a bid by Bristol Myers Squibb Co's Juno Therapeutics Inc to reinstate a $1.2 billion award it won in its patent fight with Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) subsidiary Kite Pharma Inc over a lymphoma drug. The justices turned away Juno's appeal of a lower court's ruling throwing out the award in the litigation over Kite's biologic drug Yescarta, in a case that could have repercussions for the cutting-edge biologic drug industry. Juno and Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research sued Kite in 2017 in federal court in Los Angeles, accusing it of copying technology that the institute licenses to Juno. Juno and Sloan Kettering have told the Supreme Court that the Federal Circuit's decision to invalidate the patent and other rulings against biologic patents have been "devastating for innovation." On Nov. 4, the Supreme Court took up another patent case involving biologic drugs, agreeing to hear Amgen's bid to revive patents on its cholesterol drug Repatha.

NEW YORK, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The United States is seeking a forfeiture order for more than $1 billion in Bitcoin that was stolen from the Silk Road online marketplace in 2012, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Monday. Zhong on Friday pleaded guilty to wire fraud that tricked Silk Road's processing system into releasing the funds into his accounts. The Bitcoin was at the time worth more than $3 billion, but the value of the cryptocurrency has since lost about two-thirds of its value. Silk Road was seized by the U.S. government in 2013, when officials described the underground website as a massive illegal drug- and money-laundering marketplace. The website's creator Ross Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 of seven counts of enabling illegal drug sales via bitcoin.

[1/3] A man rides a scooter past the front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, U.S. September 30, 2022. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its conservative justices have signaled skepticism toward expansive regulatory power and the duty of judges, under Supreme Court precedent, to give deference to that authority. Axon sued the FTC in 2020 in federal court in Arizona following an investigation by the agency into its 2018 acquisition of Vievu, a rival body-camera provider. Cochran sued in 2019 to stop the enforcement action, like Axon contesting the SEC's in-house judges under Article II.

[1/2] SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk gestures during a joint news conference with T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert at the SpaceX Starbase, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., August 25, 2022. REUTERS/Adrees LatifCompanies Twitter Inc FollowTesla Inc FollowWILMINGTON, Del., Nov 7 (Reuters) - As Elon Musk is engulfed in his overhaul of Twitter, the entrepreneur is headed to trial to defend his record $56 billion Tesla Inc pay package against claims it unjustly enriches him without requiring his full-time presence at the carmaker. The disputed pay package allows Musk to buy 1% of Tesla's stock at a deep discount each time escalating performance and financial targets are met; otherwise Musk gets nothing. Does Elon Musk work for the board or does the board work for Elon Musk," said Minor Myers, a professor at UConn School of Law. Myers said if the pay package is rescinded, the board could simply create a new one and do so with McCormick's ruling to guide them.

A dispute arose over the price Fox would pay for a stake in the market-leading FanDuel app, leading to arbitration that began in the spring of 2021. The sports betting app Fox Bet is available in four states, with just 0.2% share of the U.S. market, according to researcher Vixio. A free version called Fox Bet Super 6 has attracted some 6 million users whom Fox hopes to eventually convert to betters. The growth of Fox Bet has stagnated since Flutter acquired Stars Group, the company that helped launch Fox Bet and owns and operates the app. Fox claimed that Flutter failed to provide reasonable resources behind Fox Bet, a claim Flutter said the arbitrator rejected, finding that Flutter had agreed to commit "commercially reasonable" resources behind the offering.

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - The House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump said on Friday it had given the former president until next week to begin producing documents requested under a subpoena. The Jan. 6 committee announced on Oct. 21 that it had sent a subpoena to Trump requiring documents be submitted by Nov. 4 and for him to appear for deposition testimony beginning on or about Nov. 14. The panel said then it had "overwhelming evidence … that (Trump) personally orchestrated" an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Reporting by Patricia Zengerle Editing by Chris ReeseOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Companies Chevron Corp FollowNov 4 (Reuters) - The Contra Costa County District Attorney on Friday said it has reached a settlement with Chevron Corp (CVX.N) over a diesel spill into the San Francisco Bay from the company's 245,271 barrel-per-day Richmond, California refinery last year. Officials did not release financial details of the settlement, and Chevron was not immediately unavailable for comment. "Corporations must be held strictly liable for any discharges of diesel into San Francisco Bay," said District Attorney Diana Becton in a statement. Around 757 gallons of a diesel water mixture leaked into the bay at the Richmond Refinery Marine Terminal in February last year. Some provisions in the judgment mandate Chevron implement various prevention and response measures to address and mitigate the identified hazards discovered in the investigation.

Nov 4 (Reuters) - Fox Corp (FOXA.O) said an arbitrator on Friday reaffirmed its right to acquire a nearly one-fifth stake in FanDuel, settling a longstanding dispute with the betting app's owner, Flutter Entertainment Plc (FLTRF.L). The New York-based Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services also settled a dispute over the price to exercise that option. Fox has a 10-year option to acquire an 18.6% stake of FanDuel for $3.7 billion. In April 2021, Fox filed its lawsuit against the Irish gaming company, seeking to secure its option to buy an stake in the market-leading FanDuel app. The arbitrator Friday settled on an option price based on a $20 billion valuation for FanDuel.

Nov 4 (Reuters) - Fox Corp (FOXA.O) said an arbitration court on Friday reaffirmed its right to acquire a nearly one-fifth stake in FanDuel, settling a longstanding dispute with the betting app's parent company, Flutter Entertainment Plc (FLTRF.L). The court also settled a dispute over the price to exercise that option. Fox has a 10-year option to acquire an 18.6% stake of FanDuel for $3.7 billion. Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The justices took up Amgen's appeal of the lower court ruling that threw out the Repatha patents. Amgen and other drugmakers have called the case a test of their ability to earn and defend patents for important drugs. Amgen first sued Regeneron and Sanofi in 2014 over their rival drug Praluent, which works by a similar mechanism as Repatha. Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen sold more than $1.1 billion worth of Repatha worldwide last year. Regeneron sold $170 million worth of Praluent in the United States last year, and Sanofi sold over $200 million worth in the rest of the world.

[1/2] The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, U.S., June 26, 2022. The Senate has the authority to confirm a president's nominees to the federal judiciary including the Supreme Court. Biden's Republican predecessor Donald Trump put a major emphasis on getting judicial nominations confirmed as he worked to move the judiciary rightward. If Democrats retain control, Biden has a chance to match or surpass Trump's mark of having 234 judicial nominees confirmed over four years. Circuit courts are the regional federal appellate courts one step below the Supreme Court.

Nov 4 (Reuters) - Twitter was sued over Elon Musk's plan to lay off about half of its workforce, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing a class-action lawsuit filed in a San Francisco federal court. Twitter employees say the company is eliminating workers without enough notice in violation of federal and California law, the report said. Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb ChakrabartyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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